


The Date that Wasn't

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 1987), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Character(s) of Color, Daisy is super sweet badass, Donald is a good dad, F/M, He needs a spa day though, Humanized Ducks, I just wanted to make some sweet sweet duck puns, Other, The triplets have distinct personalities, They're people yo, it's a miracle, poc characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 22:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: All Donald wanted was his suit cleaned so that he could go to his job interview, have a paying job so he can keep a roof over his nephews' heads, and save up enough money to send them all to four-year colleges. But in the meantime he got the wrong person's dry cleaning and the chance to make a friend.





	The Date that Wasn't

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a huge Ducktales fan, and I can't tell you how excited I am for the new show. But I learned that Daisy wouldn't be making an appearance, and felt that should be remedied.  
> If you read, please be sure to leave a comment!

Since adopting Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald had worked more jobs than most people could accomplish in one lifetime. Everything from bartender to janitor, cook to waiter, there wasn’t a job too demanding or too uncomfortable for Donald Fauntleroy Duckart, especially not when it came to the welfare of his nephews. And with three kids, Donald often needed to take more than one job at a time, because his nephews had an endless stream of needs: food enough for three growing boys, money for field trips, dues for science and art classes, new clothes, the list went on and on in a constant loop whenever Donald closed his eyes.

He could never regret adopting them though, not ever, especially when he returned to their houseboat exhausted and aching for a nap until his next shift and found Huey had already gotten dinner started. Or when Dewey dramatically reenacted his home run, complete with explosions and generally more maiming than Donald remembered. Or when Louie would smile sleepily at him over pancakes on Tuesday mornings, the only mornings he was home late enough to make them breakfast. Or one of countless other examples, because Donald loved his boys. The long nights and abysmally early mornings were worth it.

But Donald was one job short now, and the resulting stress made him feel like a walking, talking mass of nerves. He always worried, and it was almost second nature to him by now, but it was only over the boys as Donald had little else in the way of immediate family. His parents were long dead, and Della...he tried not to think about Della.

   
The closest relative he had was his grandmother, but her farm was a good four hours from Duckburg, and they only visited on special occasions. This meant he only received his grandmother’s well meaning attempts at matchmaking a few times a year.  
(For ten years Donald ignored the newspapers and TV headlines accusing him at every turn; “McDuff Profit Margin Takes a Plunge”, “McDuff Hangs Up his Spats”, “World-Renowned Adventurer Now a World-Renowned Recluse?”, “Where is Scrooge McDuff?” Donald ignored them but his hands would tremble and he would pull out his phone, but no matter how many times he did so, he didn't get any closer to dialing.)

(He didn’t care. He _didn't_.)

And while his last job as a funeral attendant hadn't been a charmed four months, the pay had been good and he hadn’t knocked over any urns or coffins as he’d originally dreaded. The boys had kept pleading for a tour, Dewey regularly asked if any of the bodies might actually be zombies (or vampires, Huey would interject), and Donald would get the chills every time he walked into work, but it had been a good job despite all that.

But Donald had been let go, just as he had known he would be for weeks now. Every so often he’d lose a job for reasons he hardly comprehended, but Donald just chalked that up to his luck being true to form and he tried not to complain. Too much.  
In preparation of this, Donald had applied to over a dozen other jobs. Three of them called him in for an interview. The appointments spanned over 3 weeks, which did little to settle his nerves. Someone more qualified and charismatic could easily get those jobs before him, but he told himself to put it out of his mind and instead rehearsed the topics the different interviews might cover.

Donald longed for a break, maybe taking on just one job for a bit, but his security guard gig wouldn’t cover all the bills and so he grudgingly dragged his nice suit out of the closet.

The last time he’d worn it had been the boys’ promotion ceremony at the end of fifth grade, and he was trying it on to make sure it still fit when Louie strolled out of his and his brothers’ shared room.

“You look fancy,” he observed, taking a sip from his strawberry soda, which Donald had expressly told them not to buy because of its high sugar content.

Donald grimaced, both at the suit and the soda, but chose the lesser of two evils to tackle for the moment.  
“I’ve got a job interview Friday.”

  
Louie grinned, watching Donald pose awkwardly in the mirror of their tiny, cramped bathroom.

  
“Do you think you’ll work in a morgue next time? Ooh, maybe you’ll become the Crypt-keeper for real?”

  
Donald rolled his eyes, but couldn't help the little smirk that edged onto his face. _“Very funny.”_

  
There was a crash from the boys’ room, and Donald winced at the sound before poking his head out of the bathroom doorway. Before he could say a word, a soccer ball went sailing out of their room, smacking Louie in the back. He stumbled forward, upending almost the entirety of his mostly-full can of sugary, syrupy soda all over Donald’s suit.

  
Just his luck playing out true to form, yet again.

  
“ _Dewey_!” Donald shouted, stabilizing Louie with a hand on his shoulder. “What’ve I said about playing with the ball on the boat!”

  
Dewey edged out of the room with a sheepish expression, stooping to pick up his soccer ball.

  
“Sorry, Uncle Donald.” He straightened with a surprised expression, taking in Donald’s (now ruined) suit. “Hey, no more Crypt-keeper?”

  
Donald shut the bathroom door in their faces.

* * *

It was fortunate Donald had decided to take his suit out early, a full week in advance of his first interview. He had expected a sleeve to tear, or that the suit would need to be pressed, but having soda spilling over his one nice collared shirt and suit jacket he hadn’t expected.

In any event, he’d had plenty of time to drop it all off at the nearest, cheapest dry cleaning place, and did so that following morning before his shift at the mall. While he waited to pick up another job, his role as mall security guard had subsumed all the time usually occupied by the funeral attendant one, and so he was at work from 9am to 8pm every day except Saturday and Sunday. He’d had no choice but to request those days off to watch after the boys, and with money so tight he couldn’t hire a babysitter.

  
Huey, Dewey, and Louie were nearly 12, almost at the age that a babysitter would no longer be necessary, and truthfully, Donald simply wanted to spend time with them. He felt guilty working so often, but he always made a point to attend as many talent shows, baseball games, and science fairs as he could, doing as much as possible to remain a part of their lives because he remembered what it was like not to have that.

  
In any event, he dropped off the jacket and shirt at the dry cleaners on Thursday, and picked them up again that Saturday. He’d had to rush the boys to their baseball game afterwards, and didn't even have time to take a glance inside the blue garment bag.

  
That night all three of them spent the night at a friend’s house, after celebrating their win with enough pizza and ice cream to make a normal child sick. Back at the houseboat, Donald wearily dragged the garment bag inside. While he reheated some leftover pizza, he draped it over the couch and undid the zipper.

  
Instead of his navy suit jacket and white shirt, Donald found three silk blouses and a cream colored coat.

  
His microwave dinged as he very slowly put his head in his hands.

  
True to form was ever his luck.

  
He glanced up from between his fingers and noticed a slip of paper attached to one of the hangers. He scrambled forward and ripped it off, hope that his chances at ever getting a job again hadn't been completely dashed.

  
The tag should list the owner’s name and phone number, and if he’d received their clothes, there was a chance they had gotten his. But Donald quickly berated himself for getting his hopes up. The likelihood of that happening was extremely low; what was the chance that their clothes had even been switched in the first place? What if they’d gone to another stranger entirely?

  
Donald flipped the tag over with baited breath, and promptly did a double-take.

  
_Daisy Duckett  
(503) 5519-4019_

Donald’s subsequent laughter bordered slightly on the hysterical, but since he was alone he supposed he could be forgiven.

  
Daisy Duckett.  
Donald Duckart.

  
The chances of their clothes having been switched was still unlikely, but less so than it had been sixty seconds ago.

  
True to form indeed.

  
Picking up his cell phone, Donald glanced quickly at the time. Was 9pm too late to call? The more he thought of it, the worse an idea it seemed. On a weekday, Donald would be asleep by this time, not stopping for a moment between the front door and the shower before collapsing into bed. And what if this Daisy had kids too?

  
Donald grudgingly resolved to call come morning, and was in the process of putting his phone back down when the shrill pop song the boys had chosen for this week’s ringtone had him jumping out of his skin.

  
He glanced down at the number, shock overtaking him.

_  
(503) 5519-4019_

  
“Hello?” He answered hesitantly.

  
“Hi! Is this Donald?” A woman’s voice responded, lightly accented. She was Latina, if he had to guess. “Donald Duckart?”

  
Donald smiled hesitantly. “Yeah. Is this Daisy Duckett?”

  
The woman on the phone laughed, a full-bodied sound he appreciated. “It is! I can’t believe our names are so similar. I’ve never heard of anyone else’s name starting with “Duck”. What crazy luck for our clothes to’ve been switched, huh?”

  
“Pretty crazy,” Donald replied, knowing he was probably failing to hide how relieved he felt.

  
Daisy chuckled, confirming his assumption. “Were your shirt and jacket really that important?”

  
“They’re for a job interview,” Donald explained, a little haltingly. Just from their brief conversation it was obvious Daisy had a very large personality, and a charisma the likes of which he had only ever known his cousin Gladstone to possess, though it did the opposite of grate on him. Successfully people had that kind of charisma, and Donald had never been successful in that way.

  
Daisy made a worried sound. “You haven’t missed the interview have you?”

  
Her clear concern startled a laugh of of him. “No, it’s not until Wednesday. I just wanted to get the dry cleaning done early in case something like this happened.”

  
“In case your clothes were switched with that of a woman’s with a startlingly similar name to yours?” She said incredibly dryly.

  
“With my luck, I’m hardly surprised,” Donald smiled.

  
Daisy snickered again, and Donald felt absurdly proud of the fact.“Speaking of which, do you want to meet sometime soon to swap? This is just a hunch, but I don't think you can pull off silk blouses as well as I can.”

  
"S-sure," Donald winced at his stutter. "Is somewhere near the harbor okay?"

  
"I know just the place!" Daisy replied cheerily. "There's a cafe on the corner of Young and Taylor, you can't miss it. Does tomorrow at ten work for you?"

  
Donald paused to do some mental math. Huey, Dewey, and Louie had baseball practice tomorrow, which their friend's parents would drive them all to. He didn't work on Sundays, and while he usually liked to sleep in, he'd made an exception this once.  
"Yeah, ten works," he said, already planning on going to sleep as soon as he ended the call. No late-night reruns of COPS or The Nanny for him.

  
"Great! I'll be the one wearing a pink dress and carrying a huge bag from the dry cleaners."

  
Donald chuckled at her matter-of-fact tone. "I'll be the other guy with a huge dry cleaner bag."

  
They exchanged goodbyes and hung up. Donald zipped up Daisy's garment bag, setting it over the back of a kitchen chair and began getting ready for bed, purposely not thinking about meeting up with Daisy the next morning.

  
He went through his typical nightly routine on autopilot, his long hours catching up with him. Donald tidied up the kitchen, then retrieved his blanket and pillow from the closet, setting them up on the couch. It wasn't until he was lying under the covers that he admitted to feeling nervous about coffee with Daisy.

  
They'd only spoken for a few minutes, but Donald knew even in that span of time that she was a cheerful, charismatic, and witty woman, and it had been...nice to talk to her. More than nice, if he was willing to admit. Daisy had turned what could have been a formal, and probably awkward, minute long phone call into a conversation that lasted more than five minutes and culminated in what most would consider a coffee date.

  
But Donald knew better than to think along those lines, and not just because it was horribly presumptuous.

  
It wasn't long after the triplets came into his life that he had put off the dating scene indefinitely, for a multitude of reasons. Most women weren't interesting in dating someone with three young children, very little free time, and a temperament that had been called everything from "annoying" to "unbearable". So Donald had put all thought of dating out of his mind, and focused on being a good parent to his nephews.

  
But even outside of dating, Donald found himself alone. He worked so much and changed jobs so often that he hardly had time to form any meaningful connections, outside those friends he had made years ago during his stint in the Navy. But interacting with José and Panchito through email paled in comparison to the real thing. Donald felt he couldn't even get along with the parents of Huey, Dewey, and Louie's friends, never having been able to shake the niggling feeling that they were judging him for raising three boys on his own, or worse, that they pitied him for doing so.

  
It didn't help that every so often the boys would realize that their uncle was single, and would try to set him up on online dating websites, all while ignoring his vehement protests. He told himself that their hearts were in the right place, mostly, when they put on his dating profile that he was an Olympic athlete and owned land on the moon. But the truth of it was that even his young nephews recognized that his being single was aberrant, and that he wasn't exactly happy about it.

  
The last thing Donald wanted was his boys worrying about him, so he would do his best to make sure his not-a-date coffee date with Daisy went well. And if all did go well, he might walk away from this whole dry cleaning ordeal with a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I should have the second chapter up relatively soon. Please let me know what you thought, or comment what you're most excited for in the upcoming reboot. 
> 
> Ant out!


End file.
